Since all industries, both manufacturing and service, create value in their product, value-added taxation is a comprehensive approach to business taxation. Profits tax systems rely on the fact that all industries try to maximize profit, and are also comprehensive. One advantage of a VAT over a corporate profits tax is that VAT's can easily apply to all forms of business organization, rather than corporations alone. The various forms of business organization – individuals, partnerships, proprietorships, publicly and privately held corporations, etc. – each have different incentives to earn profit. A comprehensive business VAT eliminates much of the incentive to shift income between various business forms.
In general, the more comprehensive the tax system, the less distortion it creates in the marketplace. [4] The use of a single tax system, rather than a number of overlapping systems, is a step towards greater comprehensiveness and equality of treatment. [5] The SBT taxes the value-added by all firms in all industries. Separate tax systems for separate industries have built-in disadvantages of increased complexity, potential redundancy, and possible gaps in coverage. This intrinsic superiority of a single, comprehensive tax system was one of the reasons the Michigan legislature formulated the SBT, and remains one of its advantages. [6]
Therefore, proposals to place Michigan industries once again under multiple tax systems must prove that multiple systems would bring more comprehensive coverage and better equality of treatment than a single system. [7] The basic superiority of single, comprehensive systems is a powerful advantage, as Michigan recognized with the establishment of the SBT.
This produces the first finding of this report: (Findings are indented and collected in the Executive Summary.)
Comprehensiveness of the Single Business Tax System
The use of a single, comprehensiveness tax system has built-in advantages in the equality of treatment among industries. Multiple tax systems must overcome the built-in disadvantages of complexity and redundancy. The legislature's purpose in creating the Single Business Tax included greater equality of treatment. The re-creation of multiple tax systems would work against this purpose.